Riot Watch! Holy Land edition, the next big thing in solar energy and Courtney Love = blowhard

- Zero credit to the city of Laurens, S.C. for backing down from what should have stood as a monument to the exceedingly rare instance of government officials actually having a decent sense of humor. The city was tired of people littering - shocker - and decided that the best way to go about combating the problem was to post signs that delivered their anti-littering message with a snarky sense of humor. Three different signs were posted as part of the city's 2014 Don't Trash Laurens campaign, with the most notable one featuring a message that read, "Don't litter, Jackass, that means you!" The message featured a donkey in the place of the word jackass and it was actually pretty funny, right up to the point someone with a stick up their ass deemed the sign to be inappropriate and ordered that it be taken down. The other two designs, which do not feature clever allusions to profanity, will remain up as long as the city gets them approved through the DOT-permitting process, which spokesperson for the South Carolina Department of Transportation said was underway. Laurens Mayor Sharon Brownlee defiantly promised to continue the campaign she launched, saying it is having the desired effect. "I think the trash on our streets is a whole lot more offensive," Brownlee said, saying the "Jackass" signs will now be placed in areas under city jurisdiction. It’s a solid compromise, but not as good as the city standing its ground and telling the state what a bunch of jackasses it has running its department of transportation. Oh, and the signs were created by residents as part of a contest the city held, so is the city now supposed to go to the winner who designed the “Jackass” sign and take back their prize? Think about it……….

- Is anyone looking to Courtney Love to validate the careers of rock icons who have millions of fans spanning the entire planet? That rhetorical question is brought to you by the sheer absurdity of Love taking a pointed run at The Boss, a.k.a. New Jersey legend and Chris Christie favorite Bruce Springsteen. Love decided that her run as the lead singer for the wildly overrated Hole qualifies her to determine how legit Springsteen is and the woman who leeched onto Kurt Cobain’s rising star has decreed that "saxophones don't belong in rock 'n' roll." That is an obvious allusion to Springsteen’s iconic, longtime saxophone player Clarence Clemons, who passed away last year. Taking a shot at a deceased man is decidedly douchey, but douchey is what Love has always been. The comment came as part of a clip included in Love’s non-amusing YouTube series Courtney Love On…. and needless to say, it is must-miss viewing. "I really like him," she said of Springsteen. "He's a nice guy. Cameron Crowe, an old, very dear friend of mine, took me to the Staples Center for a three-night gig, and I could only last an hour and a half in a three-and-a-half hour show with the Boss." At least Love has a dose of realism somewhere inside her mostly empty head, as she conceded that Springsteen probably isn't a huge fan of her band. "I don't think he sits around listening to Hole records, do you?" she added. No, he does not. Love made her comments just days after she joined Cobain's bandmates Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic to celebrate Nirvana's induction into the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame. Somewhere in the midst of hanging with so many actually talented people, you’d think she would grasp how small and insignificant her voice is in the rock world………..

- Calgary Flames interim general manager Brian Burke should probably watch his mouth. After all, he is the interim general manager of a team that failed to make the NHL playoffs. Guys like that typically don’t carry a lot of weight around the league and they look even worse when they take a very public run at one of the most interesting men in hockey. Yet there was Burke, defending his coach Bob Hartley and saying Vancouver Canucks coach John Tortorella "oughta keep his mouth shut." Burke, also Calgary's president of hockey operations, was returning fire after Sunday's regular-season finale in Vancouver, where the Canucks won 5-1. Tortorella took exception to Canucks forward Daniel Sedin being blasted from behind and driven into the boards by Flames forward Paul Byron late in the second period. Sedin was taken off the ice on a stretcher after scoring twice in the game and Byron received a five-minute major and a game misconduct for his hatchet job. Tortorella was not impressed. "It's embarrassing to coach against the guy across from me tonight," Tortorella said. "Some of the things that went on when Danny was hurt, it's embarrassing. I don't like the way he [Hartley] does business. I don't like him, and eventually I guess why I am talking about it in this way is because I need to protect my players and a lot of people don't understand that, so I'll just leave it at that." Sedin later recalled striking his head on the glass along the boards, trying to lift his head once he fell and being terrified about the injuries he may have sustained. The coaches’ battle of words was a continuation of their strife during a Jan. 18 game during which Tortorella attempted to bum-rush Calgary's locker room following a line brawl and was suspended for 15 days. Hartley was asked about his rivals comments, but declined to comment. That’s when Burke stepped in. "Our coach acted completely appropriately last night and Torts oughta keep his mouth shut," Burke said. "Apparently what outraged him was the cardinal sin of our coach arguing for a penalty while Daniel Sedin was being tended to on the ice.” Someone sounds a little sarcastic, B……….

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! This is a special edition of everyone’s favorite overview of social dissidence ‘round the globe, coming to us from a Jerusalem holy site more often known for its prayers and time spent in the presence of the Almighty than for violent clashes involving Israeli riot police. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld confirmed that officers stormed the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, to disperse a riot after Palestinian hooligans hurled stones and firecrackers on Wednesday from atop the site. At that point, riot police entered the site and dispersed the rioters with tear gas and other non-lethal means. Everyone can agree that there aren't enough historic, extremely holy sites at which there are riots and tear gas, so this entire scene was a nice injection of life into a city that is already teeming with animosity, drama and life. The Temple Mount site is known to Muslims as the "Noble Sanctuary" and is Islam's third-holiest site. The fact that Israel ranks it higher on its holy sight list than Muslims do never dissuades either side from beefing over who has control of the area, which Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 war. Clashes at the site are frequent after Muslims conclude their prayers and Jews typically pray below at the Western Wall. Of late, more Jews have begun praying at the Temple Mount in addition to worshipping at the wall and that has yielded even more violent clashes than normal. For two sides that have been feuding for centuries and will likely be beefing for a long, long time, the fact that the well of hate and ire has not run dry is both remarkable and a bit disturbing. Here’s hoping the Vatican follows suit at some point by having the pope in full riot gear, swinging a baton at those gathered in St. Peter’s Square as his papal guards squeeze off tear gas canisters and drive the faithful back with fire hoses……..

- What’s the next big thing in solar energy? Think small. The wicked-smaht folks at MIT and Harvard University have devised a way to store solar energy in minute molecules that can then be tapped to heat homes, water or used for cooking. These amazing molecules can store their heat indefinitely and also be ndlessly re-used while emitting absolutely no greenhouse gases. In other words, they’re the opposite of Rush Limbaugh. There is still no feasible way to build a perpetual heat machine, but the researchers succeeded in the laboratory at demonstrating the viability of the phenomenon called photoswitching. “Some molecules, known as photoswitches, can assume either of two different shapes, as if they had a hinge in the middle,” MIT researchers said in statement about their work. “Exposing them to sunlight causes them to absorb energy and jump from one configuration to the other, which is then stable for long periods of time.” To liberate that energy, the researchers exposed the molecules to a small amount of light, heat or electricity. When they switch back to their other shape, the molecules then emit heat. “In effect, they behave as rechargeable thermal batteries: taking in energy from the sun, storing it indefinitely, and then releasing it on demand,” the scientists said. To facilitate the switch, the research team used a photoswitching substance called an azobenzene, attaching the molecules to substrates of carbon nanotubes. In so doing, they were able to pack the molecules closely enough together to achieve a sufficient energy density to generate usable heat. When they failed to pack fewer than half the number of molecules needed as indicated by an earlier computer simulation of the experiment, the process fizzled out. When they succeeded, they produced a whopping 200-percent increase in energy density. Tally this up as a rare instance when science accomplished something that really is relevant and has clear positive repercussions……….

Anti-MLB replay rage, deah by fire and and Arcade Fire = hipster icons

- Hipster cool remains the defining characteristic of Canadian indie rock favorites Arcade Fire and their performance on the final day of the first weekend of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. cemented that fact. After a rollicking set that included a guest appearance from Blondie’s Debbie Harry, who joined the band to perform Blondie’s 1979 single “Heart of Glass,” shared vocals with Régine Chassagne while Win Butler played piano. "Cruise on, motherf*ckers," Harry shouted to the crowd as the track faded from an old-school rock classic into “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains),” on which Harry provided backing vocals before dancing with Chassagne holding multi-colored streamers. Butler saluted her with a profanity-enhanced nickname, but it was the other portions of the show that affirmed Arcade Fire’s hipster-ish pomposity. They were introduced by a man wearing a suit made of shattered mirrors and played their first track, “Reflektor,” with Chassagne shining mirror discs strapped onto her hands into the crowd. After that, Butler took aim at the establishment and the highbrow attendees who dared to accept VIP passes to the festival and rub elbows with the performers at backstage parties. He decried the VIP areas at such festivals and fired off a few salvos at those who occupy them. "I just want to say that there's a lot of fake VIP room bullsh*t happening at this festival, and sometimes people dream of being there – but it super sucks in there, so don’t worry about it,” Butler snarked. He later fired a wholly valid salvo at all of the dance and electronic bands playing the festival, giving a "shout out to all the bands playing instruments this weekend" at the end of the set. It took clean-up crews quite a while the wash all of the righteous condescension from the stage………

- Where are people the happiest? If you guessed that the community found to be the most satisfied with their city in a Gallup poll were residents of some location in Colorado, you are both correct and a diligent observer of the blatantly obvious. The weed-loving denizens of the centennial state clearly have an edge on the rest of the country when it comes to satisfaction, much like stoners have an edge when it comes to finding tasty food because most anything tastes good to someone who is baked out of their mind. As such, it makes perfect sense that Fort Collins rated as America’s most-satisfied city, with a whopping 94.9 percent of residents saying they are content with their city. Fort Collins has been a strong performer in the survey since Gallup launched it in 2008 and it more than outdid runner-up San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles in California. The veracity of the results is dubious, though, as Gallup found that 85 percent of Americans say they are satisfied with the city they live in and a majority of respondents believe their community is headed in the right direction. Asking residents of Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and most any city in West Virginia – just kidding, West Virginians! – would do enough damage to the negative end of the spectrum to push that mark below 60 percent at a minimum. Still, Gallup claimed it surveyed at least 300 adults – it did not specify living or dead - in each of the 189 metropolitan areas it studied. On the opposite end of the spectrum from Fort Collins and San Luis Obispo was Rockford, Ill., which rated as the country’s least-satisfied city. Next at the bottom of the list were Stockton, Calif., Bakersfield, Calif., and Flint, Mich. A mere 39.7 percent of Rockfordians said they felt their city was getting better. The fast riser to watch for next year’s survey is clearly Memphis, which ranked last in the 2008 survey with 68.8 percent satisfaction but rose to 79.7 percent in 2013………

- Thieves are treated harshly in many countries around the world. It becomes very interesting to see how citizens of various cities, towns and villages deal with sticky-fingered criminals caught five-finger-discounting clothes, groceries and other merchandise for which they are either too poor or simply too morally bankrupt to pay. Villagers in the remote Bolivian town of Ayopaya have to be near the top of the cruelty heap after allegedly pushing two young men to death’s door by using venomous fire ants to torture them for stealing three motorcycles. According the local authorities, the Amazon villagers seized the two men after accusing them of theft and tied them to a tree before unleashing their killer ants. The venomous ants, of the pseudomyrmex triplarinus species, have a symbiotic relationship with the triplaris tree and their venom has anti-inflammatory properties and is used a traditional cure for arthritis. However, it can also be lethal when administered in large doses. Those doses tend to reach said lethal levels when the victims are tied to a tree for three days and repeatedly attacked by fire ants, which a sister of one of the two accused thieves alleged to have happened. According to a doctor treating the two men, one remains in intensive care while the other had required dialysis for kidney failure. The only reason the two men were eventually released is because their relatives paid $3,700 as compensation for the motorcycles. With their bloodlust and thirst for revenge satisfied, the villagers let the two men go. Otherwise, witnesses said, they would have been killed for their crimes in one of the more prolonged and just plain heinous ways to shuffle off this mortal coil. One suspects both men might live the rest of their lives – however long that may be – with a can of RAID and a rolled-up magazine close at hand……..

- Two weeks in, Major League Baseball's expanded replay system is making friends and influencing people…to get themselves thrown out of games. Boston Red Sox manager John Farrell showed himself to be no fan of the system, which was instituted with the aim of mitigating the human element in umpiring decisions. Replay fulfilled that role over the weekend by taking two missed calls in the Red Sox-Yankees series….and turning them into completely blown calls that so infuriated Farrell that he got himself ejected arguing them. "It's hard to have any faith in the system,'' Farrell said after Boston's 3-2 loss to the Yankees. Farrell made history by becoming the first manager in the major leagues to be ejected for disputing a play that was reviewed on replay because he lost his sh*t after umpires reversed their call on what would have been an inning-ending double play in the fourth inning. The reversal ripped an out from the Red Sox and gave the Yankees a run that would not have counted had the original call stood. The fact that the run proved to be the final margin of victory for the Yankees underscored the depth of Farrell’s rage. First base umpire Bob Davidson initially called the Yankees' Francisco Cervelli out at first after he grounded to third baseman Ryan Roberts, who threw to second to force Kelly Johnson, with second baseman Jonathan Herrera throwing to first baseman Mike Napoli. Yankees manager Joe Girardi challenged the call and crew chief Brian O'Nora digitally pow-wowed with MLB's replay center and announced the call had been reversed. An enraged Farrell came hurtling out of the dugout and went berserk in a way that would make Eminem proud. "We felt that it was clear that the replay was inconclusive,'' Farrell said, "and the frustrating part is that when this was rolled out and explained to us, particularly on the throw received by the first baseman, we were instructed when the ball enters the glove -- and not that it has to hit the back of the glove -- is where the out is deemed complete.” This came one day after Farrell asked umpires to review a call at second base, the umpire refused to overturn their decision and MLB admitted after the game that the call should have been changed. Ah, the joys of technology………..

- This cannot possibly end well. Any story hinging on Microsoft “squeezing” its world’s-worst operating system into devices with limited storage is bound for disaster and the journey isn't going to last long. This particular attmept involves the house that Bill Gates Built trying to fit its Windows 8.1 onto devices with storage space as small as 16GB. The company is doing so in order to live up to a promise it made earlier this year about producing low-cost tablets and laptops. To faciliate this fool’s errand, Microsoft will use a technology it has dubbed "WIM" for "Windows Imaging.” It is a file-based disk image format introduced in Windows Vista, the colossal operating system flop that debuted in 2007. WIM split off from Vista and was dubbed Longhorn. Longhorn was originally designed to produce an operating system in 2004 and a mere decade later, it sort of, kind of has hit its mark. In order to jam a Windows 8.1 update on devices with tight storage constraints, Microsoft has applied the decade-old technology to free up more space for applications and user content. "This new deployment option, called Windows Image Boot (or WIMBoot), takes a different approach than traditional Windows installations," Michael Niehaus, senior product marketing manager in the Windows Commercial group, wrote in a company blog post. "Instead of extracting all the individual Windows files from an image (WIM) file, they remain compressed in the WIM. But from the user's perspective, nothing looks any different: You still see a C: volume containing Windows, your apps, and all of your data." The über-compressed WIM file contains all the files necessary to run Windows 8.1 in all of its incompetent glory and does so by freeing up space in a process based on moving Windows to its own partition and then compressing it into a WIM file. So users can boot and run the world’s worst operating stem, a set of pointer files are stored on the C: drive which, in turn, aim at a file index within the WIM file. Windows then operates solely from the compressed, read-only WIM file. If this bass-ackwards fix actually works, it would eliminate the need for device makers to find a way to provide 64GB of memory in order to run windows……..

Cokehead NHLers, affluenza benefits and movie news

- When is a protest not totally awesome? Trick question. Protests are always awesome, but there are times when they are decidedly less awesome than others. The scene this weekend in Greece proved this point emphatically when hundreds of protesters battled with riot police in one of the Greek capital's main shopping districts. Much like their American fast food counterparts who have been raging against the machine in search of better pay and benefits, the Greek workers took to the streets in solidarity against the extension of shopping hours on Sundays. Approximately 500 protesters, which included retail employees but also several anarchists, closed access to shops on a central Athens street and distributed literature protesting the extension of Sunday shopping and longer opening hours for the shops. This might seem like an open-and-shut case of a few minimum-wage employees who don’t want their weekends bogarted by The Man….and it is. Mixing in a few angry anarchists who are just looking for a reasons to riot always makes for an interesting mix and the protest did generate some noteworthy highlights in its three-plus hours. When a large groups of passers-by took issue with the protest and decided to do something about it, a full-fledged brawl broke out and riot police were called in. The police dispersed the protesters after initially pushing them back using pepper spray, which also sent passers-by scrambling to avoid the noxious fumes. Despite the protest, shop owners claimed business was brisk before and after. Both left-wing activists and the Greek Orthodox Church oppose the extension of Sunday shopping for their own specific reasons, but it was nice to see the various groups come together to lash out at the establishment……….

- No one can take down the Captain, at least not yet. “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” remained a force atop the weekend box office earnings list after amassing $41.4 million to hold off a trio of challengers. So far, the superhero epic has earned $159 million domestically and is $11 million away from earning back its entire budget. “Rio 2” nearly seized the top spot, but fell just short with $39 million to place second in its debut.  Fellow newcomer “Oculus” snagged third place with a modest $12 million debut, more than doubling its modest budget and thereby qualifying as one of the biggest successes of the weekend. The news wasn’t so great for the Kevin Costner/Cleveland Browns mash-up “Draft Day,” which opened in fourth place and conjured up $9.8 million. That was enough to elbow past “Divergent,” which dropped two spots to fifth place and added $7.5 million to its overall total for a four-week haul of $124.9 million. That provided enough for a narrow margin of victory over the free-falling “Noah,” which anchored the first half of a God-centric tandem in the next two spots on the list with $7.4 million in weekend earnings for a three-week bank roll of $84.9 million. “God's Not Dead” powered its way to seventh place with $5.5 million, giving it a cumulative domestic total of $40.7 million in limited release. Eighth place went to critical darling “The Grand Budapest Hotel” courtesy of a $4 million weekend that padded the film’s running earnings total to $39.5 million in six weeks. “Muppets Most Wanted” locked down ninth place thanks to $2.2 million in earnings for the frame and continues to underwhelm with $45.7 million in overall income. “Mr. Peabody & Sherman” completed the top 10 thanks to $1.8 million, giving it $105.2 million in six weeks. “Need for Speed” (No. 13) lost its spot in the top 10 from last weekend………..

- Winter is still kicking Wisconsin’s ass. Residents may finally be shedding their winter clothing, putting away their snow shovels and unthawing their faces from six or so months of freezing weather, but the effects of the nonstop polar vortex that beset the Badger State in recent months are far from finished. A longer, colder winter is expected to lead to a scene straight out of a bad horror movie, according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR). WDNR officials say the brutal winter that produced an extended period of ice coverage for lakes and rivers has caused a decreased oxygen level in those waters because the sunlight cannot penetrate the ice and snow to reach the underwater plants. What does that mean? With ice over three feet thick in many areas this winter, WDNR officials expect there to be a larger-than-normal number of dead fish washing up along shores throughout the spring. "Shallow lakes with large amounts of aquatic vegetation and mucky bottoms are prone to this problem,” explained WDNR fisheries ecologist Paul Cunningham. “They have much lower oxygen capacity to begin with, and that oxygen is consumed as the plants decay, leaving little for fish and other aquatic life as the ice cover prevents oxygen from the atmosphere from reaching the water.” While deceased fish wafting to the shore is a regular sight in Wisconsin and other places where winter comprises a disturbingly large chunk of the calendar, officials are asking the public to monitor any bodies of water near them and report any large numbers of dead creatures in case something more sinister is afoot and an investigation is need. Once again, winter is the house guest who won't leave, the illness that refuses to heal and the gift that you just cannot get rid of for so many in states better suited for penguins and polar bears than humans, but Wisconsinites could always flee south……..

- In case there was any confusion, it’s still really great to be rich. Teenage drunk driver and future societal blight Ethan Couch is living that dream and the news just keeps on getting better for both he and his family. Couch was convicted of intoxication manslaughter for a 2013 crash that killed four people and injured several others, but he ducked any jail time and was sentenced to probation with time in a rehab facility because his high-priced attorney brought in a defense expert who testified that Couch suffered from "affluenza.” This rare condition allegedly turns rich brats from wealthy families into ignoramuses who have a sense of entitlement and make bad decisions. How that makes the crimes they commit not their fault is still a mystery, but the injustices don’t end there. Not only will Crouch get off über-light with a gentle tickle on the wrist, he and his family won't even have to dip into their sizeable wealth in order to pay his stint in rehab. During his most recent hearing, Couch was informed that his parents will only have to pay a small part of his bill for rehab at a state hospital. A judge noted that the state-run facility that will attempt to un-affluenza Couch will cost $715 per day and despite their immense riches, the court recommended his parents be ordered to pay a maximum of $1,170 per month - less than two days per month of treatment. Texas taxpayers will foot the bill for the remaining cost of the care and while presumably laughing giddily and skipping, the family's attorney said they respect what the facility recommends and will make the ordered payments. Couch is currently being treated at the North Texas State Hospital in Vernon and presumably not developing a soul in the process………

- Someone has a unique way of getting ready for the NHL playoffs, Tampa Bay Lightning left wing Ryan Malone. Malone, whose team resides in third place in the Eastern Conference standings, decided that the best way to prepare for the postseason would be channeling his inner Amy Winehouse – and no, there was no karaoke version of “Rehab” involved even though rehab might be Malone’s next stop. No, the veteran forward was arrested early Saturday morning on charges of driving under the influence and possession of cocaine. As with most people on the road at 5 a.m., Malone had something coursing through his system that should not be in the system of a person operating a motor vehicle. According to Tampa Police Lt. Paul Lusczynski, Malone's breath smelled like alcohol when he was stopped by an officer early Saturday. That ended up being the lesser of his evils, as the officer also found 1.3 grams of cocaine in one of Malone's pockets, according to a police report. In an amazing twist, a man with blow in his pocket and who appeared intoxicated refused to take field sobriety tests and blew blood alcohol levels of 0.112 and 0.116 percent in breath tests administered at the jail. Florida law considers a driver impaired at 0.08 and NHL general managers consider a player to be a distraction when they have just five goals and 10 assists in 57 games and are showing up in the back of a squad car the day before a game. Lightning general manager Steve Yzerman acknowledged Malone’s arrest in a statement and confirmed that the forward would not travel for the team’s next game in Washington. As for the playoffs, Malone would not seem to be a big part of the Lightning’s plans at this point……..

"Divergent" gets more sequels, Ukraine goes bat-sh*t insane and Chad Johnson resurfaces

- Sandhill cranes are the badasses of the wild bird world, in case that wasn’t already public knowledge. Any doubters can now shut their mouths and fall in line because residents of Melbourne, Fla. are currently feeling the wrath of these avian attackers. There are already plenty of hazards on the roads of a state with a median age of 87 (approximate), but motorists in Melbourne have encountered more problems in recent days with angry birds that have been pecking at cars and standing in the middle of the intersection at NASA Boulevard and Evans Road near the Melbourne Airport. Drivers have reported angry birds strolling out into traffic, pecking at tires and windshields in an attempted show of fowl power. Cranes have been darting and dodging moving cars like a real-life game of Frogger and some drivers became so frustrated that they literally stopped their vehicles, got out and tried to shoo the birds away. Even that didn’t work, as the cranes simply shake off the rebuke and come back moments later. A male crane appears to be the leader of the pack, but there is also a female nearby and both of them are guarding a pair of eggs in the vicinity. Some concerned people have contacted local wildlife trappers to take care of the problem, but those trappers have no way of stepping in because The Man – a.k.a. the federal government – protects the birds. Instead, trapper James Dean built a barrier to protect both the birds and the cars. "If there's a car that's right near the nest with the traffic being backed up at the light, once she gets back to the rope, she doesn't fly over it or go under it, she backs away and goes back to her nest," Dean said. Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission officials are unsure of how long the cranes have lived in this particular spot, but said the eggs typically take about a month to hatch……..

- If no one makes a movie about what has happened in Ukraine in the past six months, a great opportunity will have been missed. There have been occupations of government buildings, coup attempts, riots, plots for commando raids….and that’s just an average week in this madness. The sh*t got even realer over the weekend as the country’s acting president reportedly called an emergency meeting of Kiev's national security council after pro-Russian protesters seized control of government buildings in the country's eastern region. "At 9 p.m. a meeting will take place of the Ukrainian council of security and defense because of the situation in the east of Ukraine," a spokeswoman for Acting President Oleksander Turchinov said. The rioters in this case donned the uniforms of Ukraine's now-defunct riot police and seized control of police headquarters in Donetsk, the eastern city that is one of the flashpoints of a wave of pro-Russia protests, hours after armed men seized local police headquarters and local branch of the Security Service in a nearby city. It was merely the latest chapter of chaos in eastern Ukraine, which has a large Russian-speaking population and was also the support base for Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president who was ousted in February after months of protests in the capital city of Kiev. Those who seized the police station in Slovyansk demanded a referendum on autonomy and possible annexation by Russia., mirroring demands made by other troubled eastern cities following a referendum in Crimea last month in which voters opted to split off from Ukraine. The rage also spread to Kramatorsk, another town near Slovyansk, where protesters flew the flag of the Independent Donetsk Republic above the local administration building. Tales of men in balaclavas armed with automatic rifles and pistols and revived riot police squads should have the world watching with heightened interest in the days ahead because at this point, there is no way of knowing what’s next………

- Lots of luck to you, Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. You have revived floundering or never-were careers in the past and given some time in the spotlight to players not good enough to hack it in the NFL, but this could be the steepest challenge yet. This week, former NFL star Chad Johnson/Ochocinco will work out this week with the team and the Alouettes are hopeful that Johnson can assist in bettering the 8-10 record they posted last season, possibly even returning them to the glory they attained when they won consecutive Grey Cup titles in 2009 and 2010. Alouettes general manager Jim Popp released a statement confirming that contract talks "have escalated" recently between the team and Johnson, who has wandered the football wasteland since he last set foot on an NFL field in 2011. "We do expect to meet with Chad Johnson and work him out in Vero Beach, Fla. this week," Popp said in the statement. "Talks did take place and have escalated over the last week." The last the football world saw Johnson, he was being released by the Miami Dolphins in August 2012 after he was arrested for allegedly head-butting his then-wife, Evelyn Lozada. The six-time Pro Bowl wide receiver was released from jail after serving a week of a 30-day term for a probation violation and oddly enough, no team in any league has shown a real interest in signing a has-been, attention-whore of a receiver with rapidly eroding skills – much like Johnson’s old rival Terrell Owens has learned in the past few years. Sure, Johnson had seven 1,000-yard seasons with the Cincinnati Bengals and also was a member of the New England Patriots team that reached Super Bowl XLVI, but his drama and distraction potential vastly outweighs what little he could bring to a team at this point. That is, of course, unless that team plays in a third-tier league in another country………..

- Science has done done it again, y’all. Explaining that which does not need explained because it is COMMON KNOWLEDGE TO EVERYONE WITH AN IQ ABOVE 20 is what science excels and and this last non-revelation is a real doozy. The brilliant people in lab coats at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have culled together data from a study was conducted by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and determined that people who dine at restaurants are more likely to get food poisoning than those who don’t. That’s right, allowing a stranger with an unknown level of cleanliness and kitchen ability to cook your food and possibly spit in it, blow their nose over it or otherwise taint in any way they choose could be a problem. For the study, the CSPI researchers studied 10,408 food poisoning outbreaks from 2002 through 2011.
According to government data, more than 1,610 food poisoning cases took place over that nine-year period and a whopping  28,000 people fell ill after eating in restaurants, while 893 outbreaks sickened about 13,000 people who did not go outside to eat. Even the amateur mathematician can break it down and know that going out to eat doubles a person’s chances for a nasty case of food poisoning. The researchers also theorized that the number of food poisoning cases is likely much higher than reported. 

"Underreporting of outbreaks has reached epidemic proportions. Yet the details gleaned from outbreak investigations provide essential information so public health officials can shape food safety policy and make science-based recommendations to consumers,” CSPI food safety director Caroline Smith DeWaal said. The jarring truth is that roughly one in six Americans gets sick and 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die due to food-borne diseases each year. The more you know………

- Take notice, “Game of Thrones.” The strain the über-popular HBO series feels for being based on popular  books and having its fate tied to literary works is one it shares with the new film “Divergent” and perhaps “Thrones” can take a cue from one of its peers. “Divergent” hit theaters last month and performed moderately well, but that doesn’t mean there won't be sequels. The second book in the series would seem to be fodder for a second movie….and it will be, along with a third one as well. In order to bilk as much money as possible, er, provide fans with as much of the tale to enjoy on the big screen as possible, Lionsgate has announced plans to split the book into two films. The first sequel, “Insurgent,” will be released on March 20, 2015 and from there, it is on to book No. 2. It will spawn “Allegiant – Part 1,” which will hit theaters on March 18, 2016, and its successor, which will hit the local multiplex one year later on March 24, 2017, the studio announced. The dystopian thriller based on the young adult book series by author Veronica Roth stars Shailene Woodley as teen heroine Tris Prior, who becomes a threat to the government-enforced system as her multiple dominant traits make it difficult for her to fit into society. The first film in the franchise has so far banked $116.6 million at the box office and that is more than enough to get Lionsgate geeked about another one. It’s a similar strategy to the one Lionsgate is using for the final two installments of The Hunger Games franchise. “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1” will be released in November 15 and its successor will follow one year later. If there is another popular young adult book out there with enough volumes to yield multiple sequels, now would be a great time for rival studios to snatch up their rights and put a screenwriter on the project before Lionsgate jumps on it too……….

A "Truman Show" TV show, no one pollutes like the U.S.A. and Kuwaiti corruption and censorship

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- Real estate is a brutal business. It is competitive, it is cutthroat and there is no mercy for the weak – and that’s just when it comes to bidding for the few decent homes on the market at reasonable prices. It’s even nastier for those who make a living selling properties and that’s where the drones come in. No, sadly there are no real estate agents using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to dive-bomb their rivals and blow the sh*t out of some poor, unsuspecting sap’s open house on a Saturday afternoon. The real estate brokers at Cushman and Wakefield in Tampa are banking on the UAV phenomenon in a big way, using photographer Michael Blitch to shoot video of their properties using a drone so they can get quality footage without having to drag their lazy asses out and do it themselves. Cushman & Wakefield employee Julia Silva Rettig explained that such video is a perfect way to show off a building or home to buyers, especially if they are from out of town. "Now what I can do is show geographic location and the advantage of that to a user, I can bring the drone into the building and span through the warehouse, show my column spacing, so it shows functionality," Rettig said. Part of the appeal, according to this fine realtor, of using a drone is its ability to shoe a property’s proximity to major roadways and airports – the very sort of details that make a major difference when a buyer is deciding if a property is the right fit for them. Blitch, ever the giving soul, said he doesn't charge for any outdoor video and is merely taking advantage of Federal Aviation Administration rules allowing UAVs being used for recreational purposes to fly at or below 400 feet. "It's a very successful professional toy…I mean business tool," Blitch said………

- Is corruption a universal evil fought by nations all around the globe? You bet your sweet envelope of cash tucked inside a newspaper left on a park bench it is. It might seem like a Western phenomenon or a trend centered largely in developed nations where the cash flows freely and morals are looser than Gary Busey’s grip on reality, but the current state of affairs in Kuwait would suggest otherwise. The Middle Eastern nation is where the national prosecutor's office has ordered a secret probe into a videotape that contains allegations that a number of people conspired to overthrow the government and called for a media blackout of the investigation. That’s right – a freaking coup attempt and a media blackout to silence the investigation into said coup. It’s a baller move that requires…well, huge balls and according to the official Kuwait News Agency, Public Prosecutor Dherar al-Asousi ordered that news broadcasts about the investigation be banned. The footage in question allegesly condemns some persons of plotting to topple the ruling system and contesting rights and jurisdictions of the country's ruling emir, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah. How does a government justify such blatant and blanket censorship in any situation? Typically, officials don’t. They merely take their dicey actions and do their best to keep anyone from finding out. In this case, al-Asousi claimed the blackout was necessary in order to preserve the public interest, and that his office will make details of the investigation public as soon as it is finished. Sadly, news of this alleged coup is scarce and no details have leaked about the alleged coup plotters or the specifics of their scheme……….

- The news that Seattle Sounders striker Clint Dempsey is making more money than the entire roster of 15 of the 19 clubs in Major League Soccer is stunning. No, not because of the gross financial inequity in which one player is earning such a large chunk of the money paid out by the league, but because of the fact that someone is paying a soccer player in the United States $6.695 million in guaranteed compensation this season. Dempsey is one of 12 players making seven figures in MLS and six of that dozen play for Toronto FC or the Los Angeles Galaxy, according to figures released by the MLS Players Union. Toronto threw a lot of money around last offseason (and probably some bribes involving maple syrup) when it signed U.S. national team midfielder Michael Bradley from Roma and English veteran Jermain Defoe from Tottenham Hotspur. Those two lag behind Dempsey and his insanely bloated salary, with Bradley earning $6.5 million and Defoe pulling in $6.18 million. Dempsey owes nearly $2 million of his pay this season to his annualized signing bonus and other bonuses in his deal. The only teams with larger overall payrolls than Dempsey’s salary are Toronto ($16.7 million), Los Angels ($13 million) and Seattle ($11.7 million). Dempsey earns more than twice as much as the entire Chivas USA roster, which makes a collective $3.29 million. One could ask where that cash comes from, given the fact that MLS remains the 17th-most popular professional sports league in the U.S., but Seattle does lead the league in attendance on an annual basis and while the cash doled out to its players still pales in comparison to actual top-tier leagues around the world, it’s always nice when America can do something absurd like making millionaires out of dudes who run around a giant grassy field for an hour and a half, failing to score goals, flopping like they’ve been shot and enacting ridiculous celebrations on the rare occasion when they do actually accomplish the aim of their sport and put the ball into the back of the net……..

- It’s time to play, “Who’s colossally f*ckng up our ecosystem and deserves heaping helpings of scorn to match the heaping helpings of pollutants they’re dispersing into the atmosphere?” and the United Nations is here to help. The U.N.'s expert panel is putting the finishing touches on its latest report outlining the cuts in greenhouse gases, mainly CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels, that will be vital in the coming years in order to prevent global warming from (allegedly) wrecking Earth. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sounds very official and important, but because it’s merely a scientific body with no actual authority, it won't tell governments how to divide those emissions cuts. That issue will be at the heart of negotiations on a new climate pact that's supposed to be adopted next year and in its report, the IPCC lays out which nations are responsible for the greatest share of emissions. Back in 2007, at the time of the last IPCC report, the United States was lapping the field in terms of pollution. These days, as has happened in so many other areas, China has run down and passed the U.S. China currently accounts for one-quarter of global emissions and the U.S. is a distant second at 17 percent, followed by India (6.6 percent), Russia (5.1 percent) and Japan (3.7 percent). The U.S. still holds the title of undisputed king of polluting if you include the numbers since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, tallying 28 percent of the world's cumulative emissions from energy and industry. Because it lagged behind in the early years of industry, China’s overall share over that time is a mere 9.9 percent, just ahead of Russia's 6.9 percent, Britain's 5.9 percent and Germany's 5.6 percent. Western nations have a decided edge because they have been burning coal and oil for much longer than the rest of the world. When it comes to per capita emissions, Australians, Canadians and Americans exceed 20 tons of carbon per year and that’s more than twice as much as the Chinese. " In other words, on a person-by-person basis, no one promotes like fair-skinned folks in industrial nations. Take that, would-be world powers………..

- Never in the history of the world, has anyone uttered the following sentence: “You have to admit that ‘The Truman Show’ was such a damn good movie that they need to bring it back to life and make it into a TV series.” The reason no one has uttered those words is because the film was mediocre at best and even in the limited career of Jim Carrey, it doesn’t rank as his best effort. With zeroes and zeroes of people clamoring to bring the film to the small screen, Paramount has obliged those nonexistent requests by moving forward with plans to turn the movie into a series. Paramount executive Amy Powell suggested as much when she spoke about future projects for the production company. “"We have three buckets of content we're looking at, and one of them is intellectual property the studio, which has been around for over 100 years, owns,” Powell said. Good move, A. Mention that your studio has existed for a century, giving off the impression of stability and intimating that oyu know what the hell you’re doing even though this might be your worst idea in some time. The reason no one needs to see a new show based on “Truman Show” is because the world already has dozens of them. They’re called reality shows and they are everywhere. The movie was centered on the idea that every aspect of a man’s life was filmed and broadcast and nothing was real. That is the premise of every damn reality show that populates the programming schedules of so many broadcast and basic cable networks and pretending that there is somehow a huge outcry for people who have been watching “Truman Show” on an endless loop for the past 16 years is both a recipe for the sort of disaster that befalls so many freshman shows on network television and the very sort of willful ignorance that gets executives fired and ruins careers. Just because FX is turning “Fargo” into a movie is no reason to think that the same needs to happen for “The Truman Show” at any point in the history of civilization………

Letterman's successor, raunchy Bunny Ranch billboards and Hitler coffee cups

- Baltimore outfielder Adam Jones is having himself an outstanding week. First, he laid out a pair of idiot fans who ran onto the field during the Orioles' 14-5 win over the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium. Saying what many athletes would certainly like to say about the beered-up morons who go from zero to “Hey, you know what would be cool? Me on the field, holding up the entire game and trying to deke 350-poound security guards in yellow windbreakers,” Jones went off. "I let them know how I felt, obviously a lot of choice words because I think it's idiotic for people to run on the field and I think the punishment needs to be a lot harsher," Jones said after the game. “And they should let us have a shot to kick them with our metal spikes on because it's stupid. I’d [advocate] that people get tased. I’d enjoy that. You don’t run on the field and just disturb a game that’s going on.” But that was merely the first verbal salvo Jones was to fire off for the week, even if his next missive wouldn’t be quite as awesome or entertaining. After facing $155 million Japanese right-hander Masahiro Tanaka and watching his team come away with a 5-4 win, Jones was nonplussed when asked his thoughts on the Yankees’ latest overpriced import. "Why don't you ask Tanaka about me? I'm the one who's been over here in the major leagues for a while," Jones said. “Congratulations, he did it over there. Don't make it like he's the dirtiest guy in the world. He was 24-0 -- in Japan.” Jones’ remarks were made so much better because he struck out twice against Tanaka and still wasn’t impressed. "Am I [supposed] to go home and say I faced Tanaka tonight? Just go throw a party that I faced Tanaka? It's another pitcher," Jones snapped. "Another pitcher in the rotation. Nothing special to me. It's just another guy that we have to go through to get to where we want to be." It may only be the second week of the season, but Jones is already in midseason form when it comes to that chip on his shoulder……..

-  Dropbox wants more. The popular online cloud storage service is well-known for being a place to dump copious amounts of photos, videos or music, but it wants to expand its role in the lives of tech users. The next big aim for the company is becoming the primary way folks access and share the digital copies of their favorite images. To facilitate this development, Dropbox has launched Carousel, a new iOS and Android app that serves as a gallery for photos and videos. The app shows photos from every folder in a person’s Dropbox account and can be accessed through both mobile devices and traditional ones such as laptops and desktops. There is one glaring limit on the app and it’s a familiar one to veteran Dropbox users; the storage amount permitted by a given Dropbox plan. Users start with 2 GB of storage and receive more either by paying for it or by referring friends and having them sign up for an account. By utilizing the Carousel app, users can share collections of photos with their email and phone contact lists regardless of whether the recipient has a Dropbox account or not. “We designed this to feel like chat...to feel like SMS,” said Gentry Underwood, co-founder of Mailbox, which was acquired by Dropbox last year. Another interesting feature of the app is that it has a setting in which any video and photo on a person’s smartphone is automatically backed up to Dropbox at full resolution. Using the feature would allow users to free up precious space on their mobile device so they can cram the latest Katy Perry album onto it. All of this theoretically puts Dropbox in direct competition with industry leaders like Google, Facebook and Yahoo, but the blue box has a long way to go to reach that level……….

- The whole Nazi era is still something of a sore spot for Germany. Displaying the Third Reich’s infamous salute in public can lead to massive fines for all and deportation for visitors, so clearly Deutschland is prickly about the period of history when virtually the entire world hated it on account of its maniacal, fascist dictator trying to exterminate an entire race of people for no viable reason. That makes this week’s unfortunate occurrence at a small, Berlin-based German furniture store chain all the more awkward for all involved. Zurbrueggen found itself in a tough spot after an employee who is probably enjoying a permanent, unpaid vacation by this point inadvertently ordered 5,000 coffee cups bearing a faint portrait of Adolf Hitler from China. Why any factory in any country anywhere in the world is making any kind of drinking vessel with the likeness of arguably the worst person ever to live is another matter entirely, but the cups were made, they were ordered and according to Christian Zurbrueggen, co-owner of the furniture chain, 175 of them were sold before customers reported the problem. Zurbrueggen said he wants to take the cups "out of circulation” and he’s willing to take a small financial hit to make it happen. The 4,825 unsold cups have been destroyed and the owner said he is offering a 20-euro ($28) voucher for the return of the others, which were sold for 1.99 euros each. The tacky challises feature a semi-transparent Nazi-era stamp bearing Hitler's portrait and a postmark with a swastika in the background overlaid with another layer of decoration. Someone with Zurbrueggen ordered the glasses from a trade fair in China and they were delivered last month. Theoretically, no one took a close look at them before they went on the shelves and it would have been quite a blast to overhear the first conversation in which an alarmed customer altered a store manager to the fact that the fuhrer was staring back at them from the mug they drink their Italian roast from in their cubicle each morning……….

- Any time an angry mob demands the removal of a controversial billboard, it’s worth pausing, leaning back and enjoying a good laugh at the expense of the offended party or parties. After all, the visceral and outraged reaction is exactly what those responsible for the billboard wanted in the first place. They erected a massive display with offensive or provocative words and/or imagery because they wanted to create a stir and in so doing, promote the business, product or brand they represent. In this long-standing spirit of provocation, let’s all give a slow clap for the Moonlight Bunny Ranch, a legal brothel in Carson City, Nev. that has been in business since the 1950s. The raunchy ranch and its skanky reputation are nationally known and in that sense, advertising what it offers isn't really the point of any ad or billboard. Instead, putting up a roadside billboard advertising a place where skanks with cocaine habits, er, intelligent young women trying to put themselves through law school sell their bodies to total strangers. The billboard that has some locals livid sits in the town of Colfax, along Interstate 80. The billboard is bright pink and reads, “Bunny Ranch Bar & Cigar.” “It’s all about branding,” Bunny Ranch owner Dennis Hof said. “The billboard doesn’t have hookers on it, it’s got a picture of me and it is selling a lifestyle; smoking cigars, drinking liquor and some good food.” Yes, because what draws dudes in quite like a picture of a middle-aged man inviting them to come get drunk, increase their chances of lung cancer and roll around in the hay with a much younger woman who is paid to be in their company? Besides, both escorts and billboard advertising escorts are perfectly legal in the state of California. This is one of three billboards advertising one of Hof’s newest enterprises, the Bunny Ranch Bar and Cigar. The bar is located 1 1/2 miles from the Moonlight Bunny Ranch and Colfax City Manager Mark Miller admitted there is nothing the government can do about either the business or the billboard………..

- Replacing late-night TV icon David Letterman certainly was a lot easier than finding the next man up behind his biggest rival. Finding Jay Leno’s replacement and convincing Leno to retire was a prolonged fistfight for NBC, but CBS was much quicker and less combative in handling Letterman’s exit and finding his successor. Comedy Central talker Stephen Colbert will succeed Letterman as host of "The Late Show," CBS announced Thursday, a mere week after Letterman told his audience that he would retire sometime in 2015. Colbert, who has hosted Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" since 2005, inked a five-year contract to helm the iconic late-night broadcast. On “The Colbert Report,” Colbert plays an über-conservative extremist. When he makes the move to CBS next year, he will not take that character with him and will instead play it straight in his new capacity. "I won't be doing the new show in character, so we'll all get to find out how much of him was me. I'm looking forward to it,” Colbert said of the move. CBS explained that "specific creative elements" would be determined and announced at a later date, apparently referring to how much of the current “Late Show” format would be retained and whether Colbert would bring any of his “Report” gimmicks with him to broadcast television. The choice for Letterman’s replacement is no surprise, as Colbert’s name has been bandied about in such discussions for years. When Letterman dropped his R-bomb on April 3, Colbert quickly emerged as the most popular pick. "I'm very excited for him, and I'm flattered that CBS chose him," Letterman said. "I also happen to know they wanted another guy with glasses." He also called Colbert a true friend and another of Colbert’s true friends also chimed in on the move. Jon Stewart the host of "The Daily Show," said his former fake news correspondent has “gears he hasn't even shown people yet. He would be remarkable.” CBS said in its announcement that Colbert’s debut date would be announced after Letterman determines his official retirement date………

Raging Bills, Mosquito Bay light problems and "Game of Thrones" renewed twice

- Leland Yee IS the American dream. Like so many people across the greatest nation on the face of God’s spinning sphere of life, Yee had a lofty vision of a better life for himself. An ambitious California state senator who wanted more than spending six months a year not accomplishing anything in Sacramento, he engineered a run for mayor of San Francisco in 2011. As one might surmise from the fact that Leland Yee has not served as mayor of San Francisco at any point in the city’s history, he lost. In fact, Yee finished a distant fifth and not only that, he was stuck with $70,000 in campaign debt that he had to retire before he could mount his next run, for secretary of state. So what’s a man to do when he dreams big, falls hard and tries to rise up again? According to prosecutors, he tries to raise capital the old-fashioned way, by setting up a secret arms deal that ends up as a sting operation in which he ends up sitting across from an undercover federal agent in a coffee shop in early March, brokering what he was told was a $2 million arms deal that would include the purchase of shoulder-fired missiles from Islamic rebels in the Philippines. "Do I think we can make some money? I think we can make some money," Yee told the agent in a conversation recounted in a 137-page arrest affidavit. "Do I think we can get the goods? I think we can get the goods." Say this for Yee: He definitely knows how to answer rhetorical questions he asks. Amazingly, Yee has built his career as a Democrat who stumps for gun control and campaign finance reform. Now, he’s one of about two dozen people charged in a sprawling racketeering case brought by the U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco. He’s there alongside a former San Francisco school board president and a previously-convicted Chinatown mobster dubbed "Shrimp Boy." Yes, Shrimp Boy. You know your life has not ended up the way you hoped when a person named Shrimp Boy is involved in any way. Yee’s Senate colleagues have knee-jerkedly suspended him and now, the good people of his district have no one representing them at the statehouse…….

- Count on more winter for HBO. No, some damned groundhog didn’t spot his shadow and guarantee more chilly weather. As expected, the premium cable network gave a big, bold green light to “Game of Thrones” and extended the popular drama for at least two more seasons. Less than 48 hours after the fourth season of the show premiered Sunday night and drew the biggest audience for an HBO show since “The Sopranos” finale in 2007, HBO inked a deal guaranteeing two more years of arguably its most popular show. The fifth and six seasons are now guaranteed, as confirmed by none other than HBO president Michael Lombardo. “Game of Thrones is a phenomenon like no other," Lombardo said in a statement. "[Executive producers] David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, along with their talented collaborators, continue to surpass themselves, and we look forward to more of their dazzling storytelling." The timeline for the series has always been closely linked to the books on which it is based and as there are currently five books in the George R.R. Martin fantasy series and Martin is working on the final two tomes, the show’s producers must be careful not to get too far ahead of themselves. Meanwhile, Martn is reportedly weighing a cinematic version of his tale and given the popularity of the series, it would certainly do big business. For now, fans will be confined to the small screen and based on the show’s soaring ratings, that won't be a problem………

- So….who wants to develop more powerful quantum computing systems? The answer, of course, is everyone. That means we should all be excited that researchers have created a new method for connecting particles using a laser that places rubidium atoms along a "lattice" of light. Their work could lead to the aforementioned quantum computing systems. To accomplish their aim, the research team paired a "lone atom of rubidium, a metal, with a single photon, or light particle.” That allowed the atom and photon to switch to the quantum state of the particle. From there, it became possible to facilitate many interactions within a small space and that could eventually lead to powerful quantum computing possibilities. "This is a major advance of this system," said Vladan Vuletić, a professor in MIT's Department of Physics and Research Laboratory for Electronics (RLE), and a co-author of the paper. "We have demonstrated basically an atom can switch the phase of a photon. And the photon can switch the phase of an atom." As anyone who paid attention in their advanced physics class knows, photons can have two states of polarization and these states can be changed through atoms. Photons can also be altered from their "ground" state to their "excited" state this way and that can lead to them serving as a "quantum switch" that transmits information. Put it all together, spend billions of research dollars and you have a network that transmits quantum information quickly and efficiently. "You can now imagine having several atoms placed there, to make several of these devices - which are only a few hundred nanometers thick, 1,000 times thinner than a human hair - and couple them together to make them exchange information," Vuletić said. With quantum computing, scientists could then do lightning-fast calculations by taking advantage of "qubits," which are particles existing in two places at once allowing them to contain more information. Making that happen won't be easy, as photons rarely interact with other particles and are notoriously difficult to manipulate. For this study, researchers worked around that problem by using a laser to place a rubidium atom very close to the surface of a photonic crystal cavity. They used the strong attractive force between atoms to keep them in place, much the same way “Bachelor” producers do with the vapid, soul-less tools who appear on their train wreck of a reality show. And yes, reality dating shows and quantum computing do have plenty in common……… 

- Buffalo Bills linebacker Brandon Spikes is extremely positive right now. He won't be about nine months from now, but allow him his little burst of sunshine after signing with his new team. Spikes, who spent his first four NFL seasons with the New England Patriots, ended last year on injured reserve after agreeing with the team not to seek his outright release after he was late to a team meeting near the end of the season. Spikes' agent later denied that it was a joint decision and based on the way the middle linebacker has come out swinging since landing in upstate New York, there is indeed more to the story. Shortly after arriving in Buffalo, Spikes conducted a radio interview in which he was extremely critical of his former team. Not content with the damage he did there, he decided to light up the house that Bill Belichick built on Twitter and fired of a series of messages in which he both promised revenge and made the always-regrettable choice to invoke the name of indentured servitude. “Great games on the schedule for 2014, but it's going to be like Christmas to hand the #Patriots #PatriotsNation  a L...twice! #BILLSMAFIA,” Spikes tweeted in his first message. He then wrote that it would be “icing on my cake to hand the #Patriots two big L's this year. #justwatch.” His most regrettable words came when he alluded to the fact that his four years in Foxboro felt like he was picking cotton on a farm in Georgia 150 years ago. “4 years a slave,” the final tweet read. Well, that’s what a team gets when it places a player on season-ending injured reserve before the postseason and he believes he’s being sidelined for other, unjustified reasons. It would be nice if Spikes’ team had any chance of backing up his bravado, but they haven’t beaten the Patriots since 2011 and haven’t been close in any of their past five encounters………

- Why isn't the damn Mosquito Bay in Puerto Rico’s sister island of Vieques lighting up? That question is being asked often and in increasing levels of volume and panic by authorities in Puerto Rico because on an island that thrives on tourist dollars, having a prime tourist attraction very literally lose its luster is a blow that cannot be withstood for long. The glowing bay attracts thousands of tourists a year, but it has gradually grown dimmer and darker in recent weeks. It has long been one of the island’s prime attractions and as one would expect, government officials say they are worried about the bay's loss of bioluminescence. Department of Natural Resources Secretary Carmen Guerrero confirmed that the government is reaching out to local and international scientists and plans to launch an investigation to find out why the natural light is going out of Mosquito Bay. That such an investigation might eat up a large chunk of cash that tourism will have a difficult time replacing doesn’t seem to be a deterrent for the powers that be. What is known is that that the bay's waters glow thanks to microscopic plankton known as dinoflagellates that emit light through a chemical reaction when disturbed. This has already been a tough year for the bay, which last grew dark in early January because of rough seas. That hasn’t been the case in recent weeks, leaving both local and national officials officially befuddled when it comes to the cause of the lights going out under the water…….

Smartphone charges in 30 seconds, Rob Lowe = delusional narcissist and Cleveland's sports grief grows

- Cleveland doesn’t need any more sports heartache or drama. But seeing as God hates Cleveland, the city is getting it anyhow. Two of the city’s best athletes are locked in a beef that seems to have neither a point nor a possible positive outcome and it all stems from a social media beef. Cleveland Cavaliers guard Kyrie Irving and Cleveland Browns receiver Josh Gordon are beefing after Gordon said during a television interview that he had special insight into the ongoing feud between Irving and Cavs teammate Dion Waiters. "I talked about it with Dion," Gordon said. "He's my neighbor in my building, so we hang out all the time. I'm aware of the rift in the locker room. That's just alpha males and supreme athletes trying to share the spotlight." The tension between Irving and Waiters is no mystery and the two reportedly have come to the verge of a straight-up fight on multiple occasions. Still, having an athlete from a different sport lay his business out on national television clearly pissed off Irving. Even after Gordon said he hoped the two got along but supported the idea that one of the two would have to be traded, neither Irving nor Waiters was happy with their fellow Northeast Ohio athlete. Irving told Gordon to "mind his own business," to which Gordon snarked on Twitter that he had "hit a nerve" with Irving. "Guys like Josh Gordon need to stay in his sport and mind his own business," Irving said. "Does he still play for the Browns? I'll continue to root for the Browns, but in terms of this stuff here, what goes on in this locker room, he needs to stay out of it." All of this is cast against the backdrop of growing rumblings that Irving – once anointed as the Cavs’ franchise savior post-LeBron James – is unhappy in Cleveland and wants out. After practice earlier this week, Irving said he had spoken with Gordon and “t the whole situation kind of got blown out of proportion.” For his part, Waiters said Gordon’s comments are  "total BS" and that it is not true that he and Irving do not like each other. If all of this sounds like a bunch of eighth-grade girls gossiping about each other in the hall between classes, well, that’s Cleveland……….

- Back-to-back days of riveting news from Ukraine? Believe it. On Tuesday, the fight went from the streets outside to the parliament, where lawmakers are every bit as enraged as their constituents. The good news is plentiful for all sides in this one after a massive brawl took place. For those involved, the good news is that former world heavyweight champion and current Ukrainian politician Vitali Klitschko was involved. Had Klitschko been there to administer his brand of justice, skulls would have likely been caved in. For those on the outside, the sight of out-of-shape politicians in suits trying to speed-bag one another with their fists of fury was as entertaining as hell and then some. Shortly after Klitschko, leader of the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform party, told lawmakers that Ukraine was facing a "real war" as a result of the events in Kharkiv and Donetsk, the sh*t hit the eastern European fan.  Petro Symonenko, the head of the Communist Party, told lawmakers that their own actions in bringing down the government of President Viktor Yanukovych had set the precedent for what was now occurring and that did NOT sit well with radical nationalist lawmakers. These legisla-niacs bum-rushed the podium where Symonenko was speaking, resulting in a brawl that certainly kicked things up a notch. Two deputies from a far-right nationalist party seized Symonenko and his supporters rallied to his defense, with one of the deputies later returning to his

seat in the chamber with scratches on his face clearly showing. It is the second fight in the parliament in the past two months and the tension across the war-torn nation suggests that there could be more such scraps in the offing………..

- Give Rob Lowe credit. Not only is he self-absorbed and hung up on his appearance, but he is also a good enough liar to convince himself that he's not a narcissist. Lowe, looking to drum up interest for his second autobiography (because the first one just didn’t tell the story the right way), let the world know that there is an "unbelievable bias" against good-looking people like himself. The book, “Love Life,” is now on more radars after Lowe explained how he is finally finding roles that his jaw-dropping good looks once prevented him from getting. “There's this unbelievable bias and prejudice against quote-unquote good-looking people, that they can't be in pain or they can't have rough lives or be deep or interesting," Lowe said. "They can't be any of the things that you long to play as an actor. I'm getting to play those parts now and loving it. When I was a teen idol, I was so goddamn pretty I wouldn't have taken myself seriously." Well, at least Lowe admits he was also incredibly superficial about his own good looks and wouldn’t have taken the time to look beneath the surface back in the day. He added that his comic abilities surprised some because of his good looks and hung that too on a “historical bias that good-looking people are not funny." Somehow, he managed to outrun those good looks at some pointed and landed his most recent role on NBC’s “Parks and Rec.” Lowe’s next attempt to overcome that inherent bias about his handsomeness will come in “Sex Tape,” a film about a man and wife whose intimate video is accidentally shared with their friends. His own sex tape scandal provided perfect preparation for the role and he admitted that he “pioneered the field” of getting after it on film and then having said film “accidentally” leaked to the world………

- Who has time charge the battery on a phone that seems to lose power in the amount of time it takes to send a single text message? That’s a problem and Israeli tech start-up Store Dot has a solution. The company saw the struggles of smartphone users to charge their phone during their hectic schedules and the dilemma those same people faced watching their battery drain. Now, these bio-organic tech thinkers have come up with an idea that can reportedly charge a mobile device in 30 seconds or less. Unfortunately, this invention is only in the prototype stage and Store Dot isn't expected to have the device on the market for another couple of years. Right now, their invention cannot charge a full-capacity battery, nor is it anywhere close to being small enough to fit inside a handset. In order to take this to-be-named product from cool idea that isn’t actually functional to market-worthy creation that tech enthusiasts will shell out big dollars for, Store Dot plans to spend three years and at least $6.25 million in funding. According to founder and CEO Dr. Doron Myersdorf, a functional prototype is about one year away. Once that prototype is created, Store Dot will embed it inside devices. In the ensuing year, the plan calls for attaining the required energy density for an entire day of device use. "So we are talking about three years for a commercial ready device," Myersdorf said. "So I assume it will be three years before you can actually purchase it on the market." The current prototype, rocking a bulky battery pack rigged to a smartphone, is on display at Tel Aviv's Think Next symposium this week. To further bolster its product arsenal, Store Dot is also looking into developing cadmium-free displays, which provide a non-toxic alternative, serving as the first ever bio-organic display, according to Myersdorf………

- There are good reasons to lose a job. This is not one of them. While being asked to do something illegal or unethical and refusing is a solid piece of logic to explain why you were canned, merely dumping a few friends on a social networking site doesn’t exactly fall under the heading of justifiable reasons to get a pink slip. Carol Thebarge spent more than three decades working in the Claremont (N.H.) Local Schools system, but she lost her post as a substitute teacher late last week when she was allegedly fired for refusing to unfriend students at Stevens High School on her Facebook account. According to Thebarge, she worked as a substitute teacher at the school and was directed to sever her online ties with students at the school. When she said no, the powers that be told her to beat it. "I will miss the daily contact. They have taught me as much as I have taught them," she said. "Didn't want it to end this way." The ultimatum came from a district administrator and after her termination, Thebarge went right back to the Facebook page to which she is clearly so devoted and returned fire. "Those of you who know me and my philosophy in life, that of marching to the beat of my own drummer, would assume I would choose the latter of the two choices. And I did," she wrote in a post. This battle has actually been going on for four years after administrators first approached Thebarge four years ago about deleting her students as friends on Facebook. The tipping point was after another teacher at the school, Christopher LeBlanc, was accused of sexually assaulting a student in a classroom. That led to a typical bureaucratic overreaction and the ensuing miffed response from Thebarge. She later ranted on Facebook that, “No man or institution will dictate my relationships here, or otherwise that are within the range of my own consciousness.” Still, Thebarge will not fight her dismissal and will instead subsist on the social networking adoration of people one-third her age………